We stayed another month at Cumanà. The river journey we intended to take up the Orinoco and the Rio Negro demanded all kinds of preparation. We had to choose the easiest instruments to carry on narrow canoes; we had to provide ourselves with the funds for a ten-month trip inland across a country without communications with the coast. As astronomic determination of places was the main aim of our undertaking I did not want to miss the solar eclipse that would be visible at the end of October. I chose to wait until then in Cumanà where the sky is usually beautiful and clear. It was too late to reach the Orinoco river banks, and the high Caracas valley offered less favorable chances due to the mists that gather round the neighboring mountains. Having precisely fixed the Cumanà longitude I had a starting-point for my chronometric determinations, the only ones I could count on when usually I did not remain long enough to take lunar distances or to observe Jupiter's satellites.